It was twenty-five years ago nearly to the day, following the tragic early September 1995 rape of an Okinawan school girl in Kin Village, Okinawa Prefecture, by three U.S. servicemen — two Marines and a Navy medic — that the Commander-in-Chief U.S. Pacific Command made an inexcusable remark during a trip to Washington, D.C. that cost him his career.
At the end of a not-for-attribution breakfast meeting with Pentagon reporters on Nov. 17, Adm. Richard Macke said, “I think that [the rape] was absolutely stupid. For the price they paid to rent the car, they could have had a girl.”
In other words, the insensitive comment not only downplayed the rape — especially the impact on the victim and the depravity of the act of violence — but endorsed prostitution, which almost always involves organized crime, human trafficking, and other illegal, immoral, and anti-social activities.